


Her and Me Against the World

by WriterSine



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: AKA the armpit of Fereldan, And I can say that now because I've been to the Fallow Mire, Casteless Dwarf Warden, Commoner Dwarf Warden, Dwarf Commoner Origin, F/M, Her name is Yavig, Hurt/Comfort, I had a lot of feelings about the Dwarf commoner warden after completing a Paragon of her Kind, Massage, Mentions of Sex, Orzammar, anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-18 20:16:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14859555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriterSine/pseuds/WriterSine
Summary: Something has been troubling his dear warden ever since she returned from the Deep Roads. Zevran is determined to find out what.





	Her and Me Against the World

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of feelings about the dwarf commoner warden. This story is the result.

Something was off. Zevran could tell when Shale, Oghren, Wynne, and the warden returned from their final foray into the Deep Roads to find Paragon Branka. To start: Yavig was wounded. A blood-spotted bandage was wrapped around her head. She looked exhausted, her shoulders hunched and head lowered.

 

“Did you find her?” Alistair asked, rising from the bench on which he sat.

 

Yavig looked up. Her eyes were red, as if she had been crying. To Alistair she said, “We did, but she didn’t make it.” Addressing all of them, she said, “We’ll tell you everything as we pack. We’re camping on the surface tonight.”

 

“Why? Has the Assembly descended into chaos? Do they propose to throw us out? We heard no word of anarchy,” Leliana said.

 

Yavig began to shake her head, stopped, and touched her fingertips to the bandage. Wynne reached out and grasped her shoulder. Yavig drew her hand from her forehead and straightened, waving Wynne’s attentions away. She said, “We’ve just come from the Assembly and the Palace. Pyral Harrowmont is the new king of Orzammar. Bhelan Aeducan is dead.”

 

“Then why leave?” Morrigan asked.

 

“There’s no reason to stay in Orzammar anymore. We shouldn’t waste time that could be spent traveling,” she said, turning away from them as she set her backpack on a nearby table.

 

Leliana pursed her lips, her brows drawing together in concern. Morrigan frowned slightly, but neither pressed the issue. Everyone set about packing while Yavig, Wynne, and, at Yavig’s insistence, Oghren washed the blood off their faces and hair and cleaned their gear.

 

As they worked, Yavig, with input from the others, described their journey through Bownammar to find Branka and the Anvil.

 

“This Anvil sounds like a useful thing,” Morrigan said.

 

“Useful or not, golems are people whose lives were taken from them by force or their free wills enslaved. Or both. I won’t let someone do that again. People’s lives have _value_. They’re not just disposable, like slag,” Yavig said, looking up from the stained cloth she was using to clean her boots. Her expression and tone were hard.

 

Silence followed. Zevran studied her as she finished cleaning her boots and put them back on. Privately, he felt that in a war of survival with creatures that literally wanted to destroy all life, an anvil that made more warriors like Shale would be an asset. But, he was also trained in the business of murder. Any life could be ended if the price was right. Yavig was furious because she knew her words were untrue.

 

Yavig looked up and their gazes met. There was a faint line between her brows. The muscles of her jaw tightened and flexed under her skin. She looked angry, but also as if she were close to tears. Zevran thought about what he had seen in Dust Town. Like him, Yavig had grown up in a slum. What made Dust Town slightly different from his home streets was how everyone in Orzammar, even the people who lived in Dust Town, seemed to believe that ‘dusters’ only use was in physical labor, if that. The desperation he expected was there. The thick pall of hopelessness had surprised him a little. At least in Antiva City the poor believed they deserved better.

 

Without looking away from her, he said, “Even the best-intentioned ruler would be tempted by such an item and the power it could give them.”

 

Some of the tension in Yavig’s face eased. Alistair’s eyes widened in horror, his mouth falling half-open. Leliana blanched, a disgusted look crossing her face. Wynne sighed.

 

Sten shifted, his armor clanking softly. “This speculation gets us nowhere. The Anvil is destroyed. If we are to move on, we should do so.” His deep voice held an undercurrent of tightness, as it always did when he was frustrated.

 

Yavig nodded and stood, pulling on her backpack. “Let’s see if we can make it to that campsite at the base of the Pass before nightfall.”

 

Their leaving was met with little fanfare. People still stopped to watch them pass. However, to Zevran’s way of thinking, it was because they were such a mixed group of outsiders more than anything else. Unlike at Redcliffe and the Circle Tower where people had stopped to thank them and the Arl and First Enchanter respectively had seen them off, no one approached them.

 

He shook his head a little, a half-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. _What has become of me? I play hero for only six months and I am sad when there is no grand sendoff for my deeds?_ His gaze drifted to Yavig. She was walking ahead of him, next to the dwarf Oghren who had decided to join them. He spared a quick, appreciative glance for the sway of her hips, before turning his gaze upward, trying to glimpse her expression.

 

Yavig walked with her head up, but her shoulders were slightly slumped. As they passed through the Hall of Paragons she turned to ask Oghren about his injured arm. Unlike when they first came to Orzammar, there was no grim frustration tightening the corners her mouth and eyes. Instead, she looked tired, as if she didn’t have the energy to care at the moment.

 

They were nearly at the great doors separating Orzammar from the surface. Zevran glanced around again. The one bright spot for Yavig during this trip had been seeing her sister again. Now they were leaving and Yavig had neither mentioned her nor had Lady Rica come to say goodbye. _Strange_ , he thought. Then he shrugged. _Perhaps they made their farewells already_.

 

~*~

 

They reached the campsite at the base of the Pass just as the sun was setting. It was a forested clearing near a small, rushing mountain creek, large enough to accommodate at least two large trading caravans. As before, it was empty, though Zevran doubted that would last now that the political situation in Orzammar was stable. They selected one of the existing firepits and began to set up camp.

 

That night Zevran, Yavig, and Morrigan were on tent set up. Shale and Leliana cleaned out the fire pit, collected wood from the nearby leanto, and built a fire. Alistair collected water from the creek while Sten started preparing dinner from their supplies. The hound kept watch.

 

While the others worked, Wynne took Oghren aside and performed a healing on his arm.

 

As Zevran and Yavig were unrolling the second-to-last tent, Oghren came over and tapped her on the shoulder. “I’m all healed up, it’s your turn,” he said, voice gruff.

 

Yavig offered him the corner of the tent she was holding. “All right, you take my place then. We’re nearly done.”

 

Oghren grunted but took the cloth. He grumbled about surfacer structures a little until Morrigan cast him one of her icy glares. They instructed him in the finer points of tent construction. As they worked, Zevran glimpsed flickers of clean, white light from Wynne’s healing spells.

 

While he and Oghren were staking the last tent, Zevran glanced to where Wynne and Yavig sat. They were talking. Yavig’s fists were clenched in her lap. Wynne spoke to her with the slight nods of someone trying to be reassuring. Or so Zevran guessed, it fit with who the old mage was. Yavig’s head bowed and Wynne touched her arm.

 

“Watch your hand, unless you want me to smash your fingers,” Oghren said, raising the small hammer.

 

Zevran glanced up at him and grinned. “While I usually enjoy a good finger-bang, I’m afraid I must decline in this case,” he said, adjusting his grip on the stake.

 

From the other end of the tent, Morrigan snorted.

 

Oghren frowned. Then a red flush crept up his cheeks, making his face look like a hairy pomegranate.

 

“Just shut up and hold the peg for me,” he grunted.

 

“My pleasure,” Zevran said, letting his voice turn husky.

 

Oghren squinted at him. “You really want to piss off the guy holding the sodding hammer?”

 

Zevran offered up his most innocent expression. “Would I do that?”

 

Oghren glared at him, then he laughed and pounded the stake into the ground. As Zevran rose to his feet Oghren clapped him on the back, making him jerk forward.

 

“If you two are finished with your churlish bonding ritual, I would like to get this tent set up before dawn,” Morrigan said, her voice crisp.

 

“Don’t worry darlin’, I’ll make time for the two of us to join in a bonding ritual later, if you know what I mean,” Oghren said, crossing to hammer in the stake Morrigan held.

 

Morrigan made a disgusted noise. “‘Tis your time to waste then. I have better things to do.” She disappeared into her tent near the edge of the clearing.

 

Yavig approached. “Ah, you’re done,” she said looking at the tents. Her forehead was no longer bandaged but there was a small, faded, coin-sized bruise on her forehead.

 

“It appears our dear healer missed a spot,” Zevran said.

 

She touched the bruise. “I’ll be fine. Wynne’s tired so I told her to just get me through the worst of it.” She smiled slightly. “I’m going to take the hound and check our perimeter. Let the others know?”

 

He and Oghren nodded. Zevran watched her walk to the mabari standing on the outskirts of their camp. _Perhaps she just needs time alone_ , he thought. He joined Oghren and the others by the roaring fire.

 

Dinner was served, a large pan of meat and vegetable hash. Because Sten had cooked, it was edible but not overly favorable. After he finished eating, Zevran went to his pack for his whetstone. When he returned to the fire, Yavig had joined them.

 

“We saved you some dinner,” Alistair said, offering her a bowl of the hash.

 

She took it and ate a few bites, listening to the others talk. However, after several minutes she set her bowl down on the ground behind her and rose. The hound came forward to inspect the food, his tail wagging. “I’ve got a headache, it’s killing my appetite,” she said with a weary smile when Alistair looked up at her. “I’m going to turn in for the night.”

 

Alistair’s brows furrowed slightly but he nodded. The unease in Zevran’s gut solidified right next to the heavy hash he just consumed. Even nursing more serious wounds than an almost healed bruise, Yavig usually stayed to converse in the evening. After finishing major tasks or facing great dangers, she made a point to take each of them aside to talk, even if they had not been involved with the action. He watched her face as she walked passed their companions. When she thought they could no longer see her, Yavig’s smile disappeared. Something was wrong.

 

Zevran wiped his dagger clean with a bit of cloth, sheathed it, and stood. He caught up to her just outside her tent. “Would you like a head massage before you go to sleep? It will help you relax.”

 

Her brows rose and furrowed a little. “When you say massage, do you mean a _massage_? Because I’m not really in the mood tonight, Zevran.”

 

“My hands will go nowhere you don’t want them to go,” he replied, holding them out, palm up. “I simply thought, you have spent the last three weeks running around at the behest of lords and princes and everyone else under the earth, it is time someone pampered you a little.”

 

She looked down at his hands, then up into his face. Her eyelids flicked closed a moment and she laughed softly. “That...sounds nice. I’ve never really been pampered by anyone before.”

 

Zevran thought of Dust Town and her mother. _That, I can believe_. Yavig crouched and crawled into her tent. He followed, removing the Antivan boots she had given him just before they went to Orzammar. It still awed him a little, that she had remembered he needed a new pair after his throwaway comment. At the time, he had not even meant to mention it, but there was something about Yavig that made talking easy.

 

Yavig knelt on her unfurled sleeping mat and bedroll and took off her armor. When she was down to socks, undershirt, and leggings he crawled behind her and rose to his knees.

 

He started working her shoulders and neck. She was tense. After a few minutes, however, her shoulders relaxed, her  muscles loosened. The only sounds were the faint creak of his leather armor and her slow, deep breathing.

 

“Do you mind if I take your hair down?” he asked.

 

Yavig turned her head toward him slightly. “Yes, that’s fine,” she said, her voice quiet.

 

Zevran removed the pins, letting her hair fall from it’s bun. Yavig took them and slipped them into a pouch in her backpack. He slid his fingers into her hair, combing it out before beginning his massage again. Zevran shifted closer on his knees, rubbing her scalp with the pads of his fingers. His hands moving gradually up the back and sides of Yavig’s head to her crown. Her hair smelled faintly of musk and the waxy, powdery-scented soap they’d been given in Orzammar. Yavig sighed and bowed her head.

 

“Who injured you?” he asked.

 

“Branka hit me with the rim of her shield,” Yavig replied. “Would’ve knocked me out if not for Wynne.”

 

Zevran drew his hands away and sat cross-legged on her bedroll. He folded the blanket into a makeshift cushion and set it in his lap. “Lay down, and I’ll take care of your forehead.”

 

Yavig complied, folding her hands over her stomach. Zevran trailed his fingers up to her temples from just behind her ears, massaging in circular motions.

 

She closed her eyes. “I really wanted to believe in Bhelan, for Rica’s sake if nothing else. She loved- Loves him so much.”

 

Zevran massaged the hinge of her jaw. “What changed your mind?” He had not been present during their first task for Prince Bhelan, only for the initial meetings with each would-be king’s adviser.

 

“Before going into Aeducan Thaig, I spoke to the Shaperate. He said Bhelan was asking about legal precedents to disband the Assembly and declare Orzammar under military rule, his rule, because of the war.”

 

“But a Blight is a war,” he replied.

 

Her eyes opened. Zevran paused, his hands resting on either side of her head. But Yavig did not sit up. “Dwarves have been at constant war with the darkspawn since the first Blight. A new one now changes nothing. Bhelan just wanted power at any cost. He killed his older brothers for it! He tried to kill me, and Harrowmont, and the deshrs for it,” she said, tone hard.

 

“That must have been hard for you and Lady Rica. Did you get to see her before we left?” he asked.

 

The muscles around her temples and forehead flexed under his hands, bunching as she screwed her eyes shut. The fury was gone and her voice very quiet when she replied: “She called me a traitor, and-” Yavig swallowed. The rest of her words came out as a whisper, “Said I was n-no longer her sister.” Wetness touched his skin. She drew in a sharp breath. Zevran could feel her trembling with the effort to strangle her sobs. _Crying like someone who learned early on not to be caught at it,_ he thought. Zevran bent over her, cradling her face between his hands, and brushed away tears.

 

Yavig gasped softly. Her whole body went slack. She inhaled, then exhaled a few pained breaths. When she spoke it was in a strained whisper, “I w-wouldn’t be here if not for Rica. She practically raised me, and tried to protect me from the worst of Dust Town. I always knew I could count on her. It’s always been her and me against the world. But she just threw me away, like it never mattered.”

 

“She was a fool,” he said, stroking her forehead with a gentle hand.

 

Yavig shook her head slightly. “He gave her a son and a caste. I left, and I’m still casteless, and a surfacer, now. There’s nothing I can offer. I just can’t believe- Between Leske and R-rica, there’s nothing left in Orzammar for me anymore.” Fresh tears fell against his skin.

 

Zevran smoothed his hand over her forehead again. In their travels he had seen her in many moods. Often outwardly simple tasks would develop layers of complication that required her to make a decision with heavy consequences. During those quests she had been at turns furious and solemn, disgusted or bleak. His warden was cunning, decisive, surprisingly kind in quiet ways, and as unyielding as stone in her pursuits. But Orzammar had broken her heart. He ached for her.

 

As a Crow, Zevran had stabbed enough people to know that, as a living person, he possessed a functioning heart. This moment, however, was the first time in a long while when he felt it.

 

He said, “You returned to the city that disowned you to perform a thankless task that will ensure her son grows up in a city free of unrest or Blight. He may never know his father, but neither will he nor Lady Rica ever become pawns in Bhelan’s pursuit of power. You have her given more than she knows. Perhaps one day she will realize that.”

 

Yavig lay silent. He listened to her breathing slow and felt her body ease slightly. At last she sat up and pulled a handkerchief from her backpack. While she blew her nose Zevran flexed the faint cramps from his crossed legs and shifted to his knees.

 

She turned to him. Her body outlined against the golden brown, fire-illuminated canvas. “I hope you’re right. Though,” she paused, then said, “I don’t think I’ll return to Orzammar for some time, unless I’m needed.” She sighed. “If I survive this Blight.”

 

“I would say having an army now might just improve our chances,” he replied, tone wry.

 

She let out a small, tired chuckle. “Every little bit helps. Regardless, I know you’ll survive, with your charmed life. You’ll probably outlive all of us to become old and gray.”

 

“You don’t make the prospect sound very appealing, my dear,” he said, grimacing a little.

 

Yavig laughed again, this one less weary and more mirthful. She shifted closer to him. “You’ll live to be wrinkled and silver-haired and just as handsome as the day I met you.” He could see the rounded curve of her cheek in profile as she smiled. “I’m sorry about crying on you. Thanks for the massage, Zevran,” she said before leaning forward and kissing him, on the cheek.

 

The lingering but otherwise chaste kiss made Zevran feel as if someone were slow-roasting his heart over low fire. A warming but painful sensation, again. It was good and confusing and he didn’t know what to do.

 

He managed to reply but the words sounded hollow and flimsy in his ears: “Simply fulfilling my oath, my dear warden.”

 

She pulled away, but not far. Their faces were still close enough that he could feel her breath, soft, on his skin. Yavig tilted her head slightly and leaned toward him again. Zevran met her second kiss with a flood of relief. He knew what to do with physicality, and Yavig was already loosening the buckles of his armor.

 

They parted only long enough for both of them to strip down completely. Yavig was done first and returned her attention to him. She kissed his lips, his cheeks, his nose, his jaw. Her soft mouth trailed down his neck and over his chest, pausing only briefly to lick and tease at his nipples.

 

Zevran waited, his arousal growing. Outside the distant talk of their companions had died away as they left the fire, leaving only it’s low crackle and the sounds of the night. He had promised his hands would go nowhere without her permission and he would keep that promise.

 

Yavig leaned back and wrapped her strong, sword-callused hands around his wrists. She pressed his open palms to her breasts. Zevran needed no further direction. They moved down to her bedroll, Yavig on her back, her legs wrapped around his hips.

 

Yavig seemed to want no leisurely coupling. She continued to touch him almost as much as he did her, as If she could not bear to be anything close to idle. It was only when he filled her that she settled back, loosely holding him.

 

“Harder, Zevran, harder,” she whispered in her voice like warm honey.

 

He gave her everything he had. She finished soon after and enticed him to follow. They lay side-by-side, panting softly in the twilight of the tent.

 

Sounding sleepy and thoroughly loved-up, Yavig asked, “Will you stay, just until I fall asleep?”

 

Zevran didn’t think to hesitate, he gave her that too. Yavig curled up beside him, her head pillowed on his shoulder. Within minutes she was asleep.

 

Zevran lay there, staring at the dark ceiling of the tent. Something was different. _I should go_ , he thought. Nevertheless, he lingered.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please leave a review and let me know what you thought. I also want to thank Michelle Magly for being my editor for this. Any mistakes left are my own.


End file.
